Chinese physics paper suggests new yield results for isomer bomb

Assuming the research is correct, isomer bombs would enable military planners and leaders and heads of state a much greater range of options in defensive or offensive combat operations and related situations without the need to bring out the really big guns, such as nuclear fission and/or fusion type nuclear weapons.

As scary as nuclear isomer weapons may sound, they might have a good use in the arsenals of future military powers.

Nuclear isomers of the hafnium variety have an excited state of roughly 2 MeV above the ground state of hafnium nuclei. Going from the second isomeric energy level down to the ground state can occur in a manner that releases energy in the form of gamma rays with the same energy. Since all of the energy is released in the form of gamma rays, so-called gamma ray bombs could be developed with wide spread and lethal effects.

One kilogram of hafnium nuclear isomer at its second excited energy level has a potential yield of about 0.3 Kilotons. One metric ton of hafnium nuclear isomer has a potential yield of 300 kilotons, and obviously, a 33 metric ton nuclear isomer bomb could have a yield of a metropolitan area busting 10 megatons and so nuclear isomer weapons could perhaps be essentially as powerful as modern thermonuclear weapons, a somewhat scary thought.